These Guns



Four months after the shooting rampage at Sandy Hook Elementary School, the new law created to change the requirements of background checks for gun purchases was defeated in the Senate. The debate continues and it looks like the proponents will keep trying to get stricter laws put in place across the country, while opponents battle them at every turn.

Personally, I would agree that many gun crimes could be avoided by implementing a mandatory and thorough background check on each customer.

I believe that background checks reduce crime. State laws prohibiting high risk groups from possessing firearms have been shown to reduce violence. (Sargent) Also, the laws made to increase gun seller and purchaser accountability do reduce the number of guns diverted to the illegal market where criminals might buy them.

Undoubtedly, background checks make private gun sellers more accountable because they would have to keep records of their sales. It isn’t illegal to throw out the sales records, but with a background check it is not possible to get rid of the information. More than nine in 10 veterans (91 percent) support requiring a criminal background check of every person who wants to buy a firearm. Nearly all veterans (99 percent) support increasing criminal penalties for people convicted of illegally trafficking guns to criminals. Currently a private gun seller can sell to anyone they choose to, without any check at all.

Consequently, at this time criminals have an open door policy to buy guns. The reasoning behind my argument is actually quite simple: because private gun sales don’t have to have background checks is the reason that criminals don’t have to obey a background check law.

Generally speaking, any person buying any gun should have to pass a complete background check. If and when the buyer fails the background check he should be thrown out of all gun shops in the relative vicinity of the shop of the attempted purchase. It is all right for Americans to disagree about gun control, but background checks are such a basic, common-sense measure that it should not be up for debate at all.
























Furthermore, non criminals should not fear a background check. If a person has nothing to hide or worry about they would not care if a background check was done. To be sure, if a person doesn't want a background check before purchasing a firearm, they have probably been up to no good. “Background checks reduce the chances of unqualified buyers getting hold of dangerous weapons and then using them to commit mayhem. This makes it easier for law enforcement to trace guns back to their owners and hold them accountable for where their weapons wind up.”(Sanghoee)

No doubt, it would be good to create one specific way to buy any gun to include a registration, criminal and mental records check. It’s easy to see that by doing this, gun crime would go down, because criminals would have a tougher time trying to get these guns. It’s my opinion, that criminal background checks aren’t gun control- just common sense.

However, opponents believe that changing the requirements for gun buyers will only create problems. They believe that gun buyers should not be treated like criminals, that their rights to privacy should be upheld. Furthermore, those who disagree with changing the laws for more detailed background checks, worry that the government would keep a list of all gun owners and might confiscate weapons randomly.

In final consideration, I will educate myself and others on gun politics. We all can write to our representatives in Congress. We can ask them to do all that they can to use their influence to pass anti-gun legislation. Because even after intense lobbying by Obama, winning bipartisan support, and polling that showed 90 percent of Americans supported the idea, the push to expand background checks failed. (Applewhite) We the people are strong when we pull together. We should never let another Sandy Hook happen because we were too lazy to write to our Senators.